Saturday, October 27, 2012

A casualty of Poe's Law. I admit I'm a bit embarrassed... but can you blame me?

I was surfing through the Twittersphere... (Twitterverse?) this morning and came across an article that took my breath away. In an attempt to win the endorsement of an Evansville newspaper, Republican candidate Richard "Rape Pregnancy is a Gift from God" Mourdock, went on at considerable length about his stance on pregnancies that occur as a result of rape, how rape victims should have prayed harder, how scientific studies show that a woman is less likely to get raped if she prays before a big date, and how people who aren't "right with God" have a stronger chance of finding themselves in those undesirable situations, among other things.

I was outraged. I immediately retweeted with my own added comment: "Unvelievable! Will Mitt still support this nut after this?!" I added it to my Facebook page: "Eagerly awaiting a statement from Mitt Romney about this. Anything other than a complete repudiation and withdrawal of support from Richard Mourdock after these fantastical comments is a complete fail for Romney and should disqualify him from any chance of elected office, especially the Presidency." I was livid!

...Ahem... I was then informed a bit later that the piece (from the Daily Currant) was satirical. I suppose the comments were really fantastical after all. Not knowing that The Daily Currant is a satirical website, I became a victim of Poe's Law. I then sent out tweets and status updates informing everyone of my mistake. But with the current mindset of the Republican Party, can you blame me for believing it?

My point is this: with all the lunacy that's been uttered on an almost daily basis by the Fox "News" network and conservative radio hosts led by Rush Limbaugh, and swallowed hook, line and sinker by this new species of "Republican," it's really getting harder and harder to differentiate the truth from satire. And when a political party is incapable of being satirized it makes for a very sad state of affairs for the future of said party when an outrageous joke can be mistaken for the truth.